The year 2009 has been declared by the United Nations as the International Year of Astronomy. The declaration is in honour of the first ever astronomical use of telescope by Galileo exactly 400 years ago. The telescope changed the human perception of their natural environment for all times to come. Telescope and microscope permitted human beings to see thingswhich were not part of every day experience. Astronomy today is a child of high technology. The Universe has been reduced to a mere ensemble of objects which we study with a view to discovering laws of nature and testing our theories.

But the sky was not always like that. In the ancient past sky was viewed with awe and respect. Attempts were made to discover patternsin it so that its wrath could be averted and its goodwill earned. Till relatively recent times, the driving force for human interest in the study of the Cosmos has been fear; first the fear of the celestial gods and then the fear of the waters. Onwards from the 15th century when European sailors took to oceanic navigation, they only had stars for company and guidance, the study of which therefore became a matter of life and death.Curiosity- driven astronomy is thus only a few centuries old.

Our interest this evening is in that phase of human culture when propitiating the celestial gods and negotiating with them for their benevolencewere matters of the highest priority. A clear distinction was made between what was auspicious ( shubh) and what was inauspicious ( ashubh), and theshubh times were assiduously worked out. This ritualistic sophistication was an extension of a very practical need, that is to keep trackof the passage of time. Time was cyclic; the Moon went through its phases andseasons changed and returned.But time passed and never returned . Understanding the complexity of time and pondering over its nature constituted the earliest philosophical and intellectual exercise undertaken by human beings.

Such a study has a contemporary significance also, because many of our extant cultural and social practices are a continuation of the times long gone by. Paradoxically while these days we are very knowledgeable about the celestial objects and the Universe as a whole, we know much less about thetapestry of the visible sky than our ancestors did. Today when we want to know what time of the year it is, we look at the calendar. When we want to know what time of the day it is, we look at the clock. Weoften forgetthatthere was a time when you had to turn to the sky toknow the time.

Let us look at our watches and clocks andconstruct a simple clock . This clock will have only one hand(sui) instead of two or three. It does have a dial , but only with a single mark or digit, say at the location of 12.When the hand is in front of the digit, the counting starts. When the hand returns to the digi, we say that one unit of time has passed. ( In your real watch the time elapsed will be 12 hours.)

We have two famous natural clocks. In the first case, the Moon is the clock hand and the Sun the digit on the dial. Whenthe Moon is in front of the Sun, it isNew Moon ( Amavasya). When the Moon returns to the Sun , a month has passed. When the Moon is opposite the Sun , it is full Moon, or Poornima. Since these days the word month is used independently of the Moon , we can use the term lunar month or better still lunation.A lunation is the period from one Amavasya to the next , or what is the same thing, from one Poornima to the next. A lunation comprises about 29and a half days.

In the second natural clock, the Sun itself acts as the clock hand. There is no obvious dial digit now. We have to create an imaginary one. The Sun appears to go around theEarth. This path is called the ecliptic. Any point on the ecliptic can be taken to be the dial digit provided we rememberthat we mustreturn tothe very same point. There are four important points on the ecliptic: (i)Spring equinox ( 20- 21 March)when day and night are equal;(ii) Summer Solstice ( 20-21 June) when the day is the longest; (iii) Autumn Equinox ( 22- 23 September)whenday and night areagain equal; and (iv) Winter Solstice ( 21-22 December)when the night is the longest. Note that these dates arefor thepresent epoch and the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere dates remain the same but seasons are reversed. Spring Equinox and Winter Solstice are the two most common starting points for tracking the Sun’s apparentorbit. The Sun takesabout 365 and a quarter daysfrom say one Spring Equinox to the next.

Gregorian calendar

Let us now look at themostcommonly used calendar in the world. According to it today is 28th February 2009.This calendar is so popular that on 1 January we wish one another Happy New Year as if it was THE new year. We forget that there are many other calendars in the world which start their new yearonother days. This calendar is some times called the Christian calendar. It is however better to use a neutral term like Gregorian calendar after Pope Gregory who reformed it. This calendar has a very accurateyear length. In it the year has either 365 or 366 days. Although January, February, etc., are called months they have nothing to do with the Moon. That is why the month can have 28, 29, 30 or 31 days.

In this calendar to keep track of the passage of time we must actually count the number of days. For convenience the year is sub-divided into 12 months, but their length is arbitrary. We could have had a month of 36 days if we so wished. As far as the Gregorian calendar is concerned, the Moon is totally irrelevant. Even if the Moon did not exist the calendar would function in exactly the same way as now. Gregorian calendar is(purely) a solar calendar.

We can construct a solar calendar in another way, where the month is still decoupled fro the moon but now has astronomical significance. Divide the ecliptic into 12 equal parts. Each is called a zodiacal sign or rashi. Sun’s entry into a rashi is called Samkranti. The solar year would then comprise 12 Samkranti months.

There is a good reason why a solar year has 12 months even if these months are independent of the Moon. Seasons return with the solar year ( 365 days). During this period there occur 12lunations (that is 12 Amavasya’s or Poornima’s)

The problem with solar year is that the new month and therefore the new year begins Chori Chori Chupke Chupke. The fact that the word month comes from the Moon tells us that originally the Moonwas the month-maker. We can indeedconstruct a calendar which dispenses with the Sun as the clock hand and instead utilizes the Moon. The Sun of course remains in the picture as the digit on the dial.

Hijri calendar

Hijri calendar is a purely lunar calendar. Muslim festivals are fixed according to it. The yearuniformly consists of 12 lunationsadding up to354 days. The Hijri year is decoupled from the Sun. That is why Muslim festivals systematically slide through seasons.

Vikrami calendar

The Gregorian and the Hijri calendars achieve their simplicity by usingeither the Sun ortheMoonas the colck hand. The Vikrami calendar on the other hand insists on employing both. That is why it is complex and can be very confusing to a layperson.

Like the Hijri calendar the Vikrami calendar also has a lunar month, whichbegins with (theending moment of) Amavasya. But while the Hijri year consists uniformly of 12 lunations, the Vikrami calendar some times makes the year of 13 lunations. Thefestivals therefore show deviation from seasonsbut it willalways be less than a lunation ( 29 days). Christmasfalls on a fixed day of the Gregorian calendar ; Eid can come any time in a year while Divali falls within a narrow range of days.

Thesolar reference point for the Vikrami calendar is the Spring Equinox, whichcurrently occurs on20-21 March. Because of wrong year length, the Vikrami calendar at the present epoch nominally considers 14 April to be the Spring Equinox. The first month of the Vikrami year must begin before this date , onNew Moon. As already noted the year can consist of 12 or 13 lunations. There is a prescription for doing so. Also note that even when the year has 13 months there are only 12 month names. A name will therefore have to be repeated.

Vikrami calendar is a twin-track calendar.It keeps track of the Samkranti’s as well asAmavasya’s and Poornima’s. Samkranti’s are the more important because they are directly related to seasons. Normally between two Samkranti’s there would occur an Amavasya. Some times it happens thatbetween two neighbouringSamkranti’sthere are twoAmavasya’s instead of one.We then count the lunar month twice; the firstoneis called Adhik Masa, pronounce Maas ( extra month). Conventionallycelebrations are reserved for the latter one, which includes a Samkranti . On veryrare occasions there will beno Amavasya between two Samkranti’s . This month isthendeleted as Kshaya Masa ( decayed month). A Vikrami year cannot have less than 12 months. If one month is deleted, some other must be repeated.

festivals

For ease of calculations, a lunation is divided into 30 parts known as tithi’s. They are of unequal duration. Assigning a civil day to a festival calculated for atithi is based on a complicated prescriptionA lunation is broken into two parts, called Paksha’s The period from Amavasya to Poornima is called Shukla ( bright) Paksha, because the Moon becomes brighter night after night. The period from Poornima to Amavasya is called Krishna ( dark) Paksha

A Vikrami new year starts with Amavasya preceding theSpring Equinox theoretically taken to occur on 14 April. The first nine days of the first month ( strictly speaking the 9 tithi’s) , collectively known as Navaratri ( nine nights), are earmarked for piety, worship and restrained behaviour. This is in contrast to the Gregorian new year which is often ushered in with revelry and hang-over. Each of the nine tithi’s is addressed to a different deity. In particular the ninth tithi is celebrated as Ramanavami. Easter is a Christian festival still connected to the Moon. Easter falls on the Sunday that comes after the calculated Full Moonon or after the Spring Equinox.Since both Easter and Ramanavami are related to the Spring Equinox, they occur close together.

Six months after the Spring Equinox comes the Autumn Equinox . The lunar month containing the Autumn Equinox again begins with Navaratri. Beforethis, homage is paid to the departed ancestors in a ceremony called Shradha, pronounced Shraadh. The eighth tithi of the new month is devoted to Durga. After the Navaratri is over, the next dayDussehra or Vijayadashmi is celebrated with great enthusiasm and fun. Note that if Dussehra were part of Navaratri, it will have tobea very solemn affair. About 20 days after Dussehra comes Amavasyawhich is celebrated as Deepavali or Divali. The Poornima following Deepavali is celebrated as Guru Nanak Jayanti. Note that Buddha Jayanti also falls on a Poornima. Deepavali is probably the only festival associated with New Moon.

We may now take note of two festivals towards the close of the Vikrami year. A night before Amavasya the Moon appears to be very thin. This day is devoted to Shivaratri. Thelast Shivaratri of the year would of course be the one just before Navaratri.The one prior to this is celebrated as Mahashivaratri. The Poornimaafter this is Holi; it is the last Poornima of the year. With the Amavasya after this begins the new year.The astronomical context of these festivals is obvious. It would be interesting to learn about the fixation ofthe tithi’s of other festivals like Gansh Chaturthi, Krishnashtami,etc.

So far we have spoken about the Sun and the Moon. In passing we may note a festival associated with Jupiter. Its entry into the Kumbha rashi ( Aquarius) is celebrated as Kumbha mela. Since Jupiter’s orbital period is about 12 years, the main Kumbha celebration returns after this period.

Finally we may make two observations. The seasonal festivals are all associated with the astronomical position of the Sun. The assumption is that Earth’s climate plays no role. This was true in the past when human beings lived in harmony with nature.. Not any more. Man made activities are now profoundly influencing the environment.

Aspointed above that the Vikrami calendarhas an accumulated error of23 days. Lohri should fall on about 22 December and Baisakhi on 23 March. There is urgent need to apply corrections to the Vikrami calendar tomake it agree with the actual, observed, sky.

( Spelling of Sanskrit words employed here does not follow any consistent pattern. An apostrophe has been added in the plurals of Sanskrit words so that the original word can be identified unambiguously. )

There is a delicious irony in the commercial and critical success of Slumdog Millionaire.Upper India has been desperately seeking Oscar recognition for its Hindi movies.Here is a movie with Mumbai-based story, Indian actors and Hindi dialogues which has won no less than ten Oscar nominations some of which will surely translate into awards. And yet Upper India is not happy.The movie itself has given rise to a new word: slumdog, while its criticism has brought forth an interesting phrase: poverty porn. That the present- day subjects of Her Majesty have made a movie about the former subjects has been duly noted. If the interest which the West is taking today in India’s underbelly had been taken two hundred years ago, there probably would have been no underbelly.

The issue however is not so much the West’s current interest in Lower India as its perceived betrayal of its former ally, the Upper India. To see this we will need to go back two centuries. The British could build an Empire in India and run it with relative ease because they were able to acquire legitimacy for it at the very outet, thanks to the discovery of Indo-European linguistic commonality. This is a political correct phrase from today’s self-consious lexicon. In its time the commonality was interpreted in purely racial terms. Indo-Eurpeanism provided the British with powerful means of “connexion and reconcilaition” not with all Indians , not with all Hindus but with upper-caste Hindus.

That the Kurds and Pathans spoke languages that were related to Sanskrit, Greek and Latin was not mentioned. That most Indian Muslims were converts was ignored. That there was no clear-cut ethnic division between upper and lower castes was glossed over.The legitimacy thesis went like this:Upper-caste Hindus and Europeans came from the same racial stock. Indo-Aryans had had their period of glory in the remote past; it was now the turn of their European brethren to rule and dominate. Needless to say the thesis were enthusiatically accepted by the upper-castes. Colonialism may have ended but the thesis was never laid to rest from the Indian side.

In the late 1950s when I was in high school, an older cousin , himself a school master, gave me a second-hand pocket-sized book. Published in the 1930s or so , it listed common Hindi words with their English equivalents. Thus huqqa was translated hubble-bubble; gulli-danda was called Indian cricket, and so on. Much later it occurred to me that the book was probably compiled for the benefit of a native moonshee, so that he could describe native social phenomena and activities to the White Sahib in the latter’s idiom. Those indeed were the days when Kalidas was India’s Shakespeare; Samudragupta was India’s Napolean; and Calicut was India’s Venice.

For a short while after independence in 1947 conscious efforts were made to establish a national identity on all fronts.But in the globalization era, as Indian economy became more and more servile, culture became more and more derivative. The west again became the frame of reference, except that now it was USA and not Europe. That is how the imitative term Bollywood was coined to denote Hindi cinema.( May be British-made English films can more correctly be called Bollywood. Then Mumbai-made films can be said to constitute Mollywood.)

Hindi film indusry is one of India’s most successful institutions. ( I am not competent to say anything about non-Hindi Indian films.) The success or otherwise of an institution can be guaged by asking how independent its vocabulary is. This can easily be seen from the case of other Indian successes such as highway-side Dhaabaas;Mumbai’s Dibba ( lunch-distribution) system; road-side bicycle and two-wheeler repair shops; and the underworld.The most obvious indicator of Hindi films’ autonomy is the exclusively Indian designation : music director. It tells you how important songs are in a Hindi film. (If the Slumdog gets only the musical Oscar it would amount to cheating.)

A Shantaram, Mahboob, K.Asif, Raj Kapoor or a Manmohan Desai would have probably viewed the term Bollywood as a personal insult. When the globalization-era multiplex-going Indian upper crust seeks an Oscar for a Hindi movie it is to legitimize its own denationalization. If a British film on Mumbai slums is multiply honoured, it is a subtle indictment of the Indian non-slum.It is noteworthy that in the movie the slum kid knows about Benjamin Franklin’s image on a hundred- dollar bill but not about Mahatma Gandhi’s on a thousand- rupee note.Tha Anil Kapoor character gives an insider tip to the slum kid. It is remarkable that he instictlively recognizes the deception, and succeeds by acting contrarily.

It is noteworthy that the hero has a Muslim name while the girl has a Hindu name. In a Hindi film of the 1960s the scrptwriter would have had to find a way of bumping off the girl because she had been violated.While the movie has been variously faulted, nobody has raised any objetion to the boy -gets- the -girl ending. Times have changed for the better in some respects at least.

Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of a boy from Indian slums who makes it big.The story is no doubt fantastic. Yet the fact that the scenario of a socially handicapped ,but otherwise brilliant, young person reaching the top in today’s India is considered plausible is a great tribute to it.

Mahatma Gandhi ( 1869-1948) is far more relevant today than he was in his own time.Leading a simple life, living within your means, buying out of your past savings rather than future earnings-these simple truths which the world has now learnt the hard way bring to mind what Gandhi used to argue all the time.

A very large number of Intenet sites quote Mahatma Gandhi to the effect that the eath has enough for everybody’s need but not greed. Various paraphrases of the quote are extant. Curiously each version is placed within inverted commas to imply that the words are actually Gandhi’s. None of the versions is authentic, though the idea is his. Regrettably Gandhi was not a one-line person. The type of pithy aphorisms that we value these days was not his style.

Frank Nathaniel Daniel Buchman ( 1878-1961), the founder of Moral Re-Armament did say :”There is enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.” But surely the quote needs a bettr author than him.As already noted, the idea is certainly Gandhi’s but these words are not his.

So , the question is : What exactly did Mahatma Gandhi say on the subject? I hope knowlegable people would come up with the exact wording as well as the exact reference.Thanks